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The Association for Retail Environments presented its annual Above & Beyond Award during the A.R.E. Design Awards ceremony to Impressions Marketing Group of Lorton, Va. The award recognizes member fixture suppliers who deliver exceptional service to their customers - exceeding expectations and in some cases making the impossible possible.

“A lot that goes into a finished store goes unnoticed. For the past three years, A.R.E., based on the nominations of grateful retailers, has created one special award to recognize the amazing effort that store fixture suppliers put forth in getting a store built and installed on time, A.R.E.’s Above & Beyond Award,” explained A.R.E. Design Awards Committee Chair Mike Haddon, vice president of sales for DCI Marketing. Haddon thanked retailers for a record-breaking number of nominations this year.

Gary Paterson of Rite-Aid Corp. nominated Lorton, Va.-based Impressions Marketing Group for this year’s award. Paterson, senior director of store planning, nominated Impressions for the company’s contributions as lead vendor for design, installation, fabrication, and execution of display and décor elements in what he calls “one of the largest retail acquisitions and conversions in the history of the industry.” This acquisition of 1,850 stores catapulted the drug store chain to nearly 5,000 stores.

What Rite Aid called its “Minor Remodel Program” was anything but small. Adapting Rite Aid’s existing Customer World Store Design to nine different store formats meant addressing a vast number of solitary design issues related to unusual “as-built” field conditions. Every phase of store interiors was involved: detailed store and process planning, design, architectural services, fabrication of displays and décor, installation, project management, and inventory management

Rite Aid brought Impressions into the remodel project in June 2007. Impressions was charged with 18 pilot stores covering the nine different store types. Rite Aid executives toured each of the stores twice-once after initial completion, then again after adjustments were made. “Impressions handled the pilot store changes and adjustments quickly and with little turnaround time,” says Paterson. “More important, the changes were mirrored in the volumes of existing control documentation, in hundreds of décor plans already completed or in process, and on the factory floor where hundreds of stores of components were needed to meet the aggressive schedule.”

Boe Young, vice president of Impressions Marketing Group, says that when the project started, Rite Aid looked on his company for their expertise as a fabricator. “But as the process went on, our relationship expanded and Rite Aid started leaning on us for design expertise, value engineering, cataloguing, and policing of the established design standards,” he says.

Following the pilot project, from August 2007 through September 2008, Impressions supplied interior design plans for up to 70 stores per week—outside of the company’s regular new store opening and remodel schedule. The company supplied and installed décor packages for up to 60 stores per week.

Paterson says that the services Impressions provided went well beyond simply supplying product. “They were a total solutions partner for the Rite Aid environment,” he says. “From the top down, Impressions solved every challenge that the remodel program posed. We were impressed not only with the company’s commitment to our two-year project, but also the company’s culture, framework, and resources.”

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